


between the motions, that trembling tender little sigh

by wolfhalls



Category: Chernobyl (TV 2019)
Genre: Anal Sex, Angst, Did I mention angst?? Because she is Here, Falling In Love, M/M, Obligatory mention of the Soviet space program, Oral Sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-19
Updated: 2019-06-19
Packaged: 2020-05-14 11:57:30
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,158
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19272814
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wolfhalls/pseuds/wolfhalls
Summary: There are three certainties. The first is that he, Valery Legasov, is going to die. Soon. The second is that he is in love with Boris. The third is that Boris is going to die. Soon.No matter what order you put them in, however you try and shuffle the facts about, it doesn’t make it any better. What brought them together is killing them. It’s just terrible, terrible, bad luck. It would be funny, if the clock wasn’t already set. Sometimes Valery laughs anyway, because that’s all you can do. He thinks he might be going mad – but then, why else would he be here?(or: Valery and Boris fall in love. it's not as easy as it sounds.)





	between the motions, that trembling tender little sigh

**Author's Note:**

  * For [quentinknockout](https://archiveofourown.org/users/quentinknockout/gifts).



> so, uh, here goes nothing!  
> title comes from [agnes](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PhdtdUljThU) by glass animals, one of my favourite songs ever.  
> this is for jojo, my number one girl. thank you for losing your mind with me. i love you so much.

It doesn’t take long for Valery to notice. Boris is an important man, an imposing man – but he is not a subtle one. Whatever he is feeling is clear to see, right there on his face. Usually it’s irritation, or tiredness. Sometimes though, when the curtains are drawn and the room is half dark – there’s something else. When they’ve left their jackets slung over the armchair and they’re sitting there in their shirtsleeves, forearms almost touching – he’ll catch Boris looking at him. It’s curiosity, a very, very specific type of curiosity. The kind that, say, young Volkov just down the hall might not recognise, but a man like Valery would.

He holds Boris’s stare, the next time it happens. For a long, terrible moment, he thinks that he may have misjudged things, but then Boris’s gaze tracks down from Valery’s eyes to his mouth – and there’s no more uncertainty.

Boris moves slowly, carefully. Like Valery is a cat he’s trying not to spook. Valery meets him in the middle. Boris kisses him, with one hand fisted in his hair – and _oh,_ it’s devastating. He could have shared something with Boris anywhere, in any life – but of course, it had to be here, right now, on this corner of poisoned earth.

-

It begins, of course, when Valery answers the phone on a quiet April morning. He couldn’t have known then though – how could he?

-

One night, after a day that started off terribly and finished up even worse, Boris pulls Valery into his lap. He presses his lips to Valery’s neck, right where his pulse is skittering. “Shh,” he breathes, right there, just by Valery’s ear. “I’ve got you.”

Valery hadn’t realised that he was shaking – from frustration, or terror, or maybe a dizzying combination of the two. Now though, he lets himself tremble in Boris’s arms, concentrating on nothing other than the pressure of Boris’s lips on his carotid artery.

After a while, the shaking stops. Valery pulls back, and lets his forehead rest against Boris’s own. “Take me to bed,” he whispers. He feels as if he is about to fly apart.

Boris doesn’t say anything. What he does do, is lift Valery up, one arm around his back, one up behind the crook of his knees. Valery puts his arms around Boris’s neck, and holds on.

“You’ll be the death of me,” Boris whispers.

“Don’t,” Valery says.

-

The first time they fuck – and God, that’s a crude word for it, but Valery thinks of how Boris says the word in his ear, pitched low and urgent – Boris looks at Valery the entire time, naked wonder plain on his face. He cradles his jaw and kisses him sweetly, and Valery’s entire world shifts, a real yawing moment. He is not the same afterwards. Neither, he suspects, is Boris.

-

“How long?” Boris asks him, a hand on his thigh. Valery shivers, that solitary touch alone enough to make his heart race. “Before me?”

“Long enough,” he says, deflecting. It has been a long day, and he doesn’t want to talk himself around in circles, but God, he does have some pride.

“Hmm,” Boris hums, lips pressed tightly together. “Months?”

“Boris-”

“Years?”

“I could lie,” Valery says. “You’d never know. So why ask?”

Boris looks at him, solemn. “You wouldn’t lie,” he says. “Not to me.”

Five years, Valery had said. Somehow, that makes this easier. They’re dying anyway now, so. It’s all inconsequential. The clock, it’s ticking down.

Valery sighs, and looks up at the ceiling. “Years,” he whispers. “It’s been years.”

Boris reaches for him, and tilts Valery’s head back down so they are looking at each other. He smiles. “Alright,” he says, his voice low. “We’ve got a while.”

They’re quiet, because you never, never know who’s listening. Boris lays him down on his back, two thin hotel pillows under his hips. He works him open slowly, methodically, with his fingers and his mouth. He does this with care, taking his time, and Valery’s thighs tremble.

Then, he strips – and Valery catalogues him. The broad shoulders, strong arms, the paunch that suits him, actually. The way he carries himself, confident and sure, but somehow still keen to please.

“You’re staring,” Boris mouths. He leans over Valery, one hand braced on the pillow by his head, one out of sight.

“Observing,” Valery whispers, as quiet as an exhale. He looks down, where Boris has his other hand around himself, stroking. “That's it,” he says, the words leaving him on a shaky breath. “Yes, come on.”

“Lie back,” Boris whispers in his ear – and then he’s easing one of Valery’s legs back, and Valery sucks a breath in through his teeth and Boris gasps despite himself and it’s too much, too much and  _oh_ , it’s not enough.

Boris doesn’t fuck him hard – they’re not young, and they’re so tired, these days. What he does do is move into him slowly and so, so deeply. All the while he’s whispering, into the nape of Valery’s neck, against his shoulder, against his lips.

( _A party man knows how to go unnoticed_ , he’d said the second time. _Don’t worry. Don’t worry. No one will hear._ )

Valery’s hips ache from where his legs are spread, but it feels so good. He’s always liked it that way, with a little sweet edge of pain. He feels his eyes well with tears as Boris moves, and he shudders. He closes them. It has been too long, and now? The clock, it's ticking down.

“What’s wrong?” Boris whispers, and Valery opens his eyes to see him looking down at him. He’s still moving, and the change in angle has him deeper, all of a sudden. Valery sobs, and grits his teeth in a desperate attempt to be quiet. Boris goes to stop, and Valery grabs him by the shoulder, digging his nails into the muscle there.

“God,” he breathes. Boris looks up at him. “It’s good,” he mouths. He angles his hips. If they didn’t have to be quiet, he knows that he would be on the edge of begging.

Boris kisses him on the cheek, right where the tears have set course and flowed. “Valery,” he whispers. “Come on. What’s this?

Valery laughs, and does his best to disguise it so an agent in Moscow doesn’t look up from his paperback. “It’s because it’s good.”

“Oh,” Boris says. “ _Oh.”_

He picks up the pace then, as much as age and their surroundings will allow. Valery lets himself get lost in it, overwhelmed now. Boris is so much stronger than he is, and he has him pinned to the bed. Boris brings a hand between them, where Valery is hard and aching. “Yeah?” he asks, swiping his thumb experimentally over the head of Valery's cock. He’s panting, and he bites his lip. Close, Valery thinks. No, knows. He’s starting to recognise the signs now.

Valery’s head falls back against the pillow, and his back arches away from the sheets. “Oh, yes. You have to. Please.”

“God-” Boris says, and then he comes, shuddering as he drives deep one last time. He strokes Valery as he does, and even though his grip falters as he shakes through his orgasm, it’s enough. It’s always going to be enough.

-

It's risky, the way they've been conducting themselves the past week or so. It’s behaviour even teenagers would have questioned. For the next few days, Valery is jumpy, convinced that they had been overheard. Boris chews on his pen – and that in itself is awful, maddening, distracting – but says nothing.

Boris hauls him out of his room one evening, an arm through the cradle of his elbow. They walk for a while, silent, in the shade of trees. No dogs come to greet them this time – and Valery tries not to dwell on that.

Eventually, they reach a clearing. The trees are dying, shedding their leaves at a rate of knots. Before long, all that will be left is the trunks, their roots brittle and loose in the earth. Before Valery can ask why they’re here, Boris pulls him close and kisses him. It’s so silent around them, and so Valery can hear their breaths between kisses, can hear the blood pounding in his own ears. Boris cradles the back of Valery’s head with his hand, and the other comes to rest on his hip. They kiss until they are breathless, until Vakery’s lips are sore and his jaw aches.

“Oh,” Valery says when they part. “I thought you wanted to talk.”

“Later,” Boris says. “I’m a little distracted right now.”

"There's no fool like an old fool," Valery says. He doesn't try to hide the fondness that's welling up in him, threatening to overwhelm him.

"Takes one to know one," Boris says, and kisses him again. 

-

It’s not so much a steady decline as moving sideways.

Valery wishes that he could see it at the molecular level – the slow, steady disintegration and then, rearrangement of his DNA. He wishes that he could turn himself inside out and look at the slow, but irreparable damage that’s occurring with each passing hour. It would make it easier to bear. It would make it easier to live with.

He tries to explain this to Boris, one night, when he’s strung out and, paradoxically, too tired to sleep. Too tired to do anything but think of how he is being ruined, from the inside out. He can feel his arms gesturing wildly, but he can’t quite make the motions connect with his brain. He speaks, but the sound is coming from somewhere far away. He is so tired, he could cry.

Eventually, he does. No tears come, just terrible, gasping sobs that are wrenched from deep within him. He digs his nails into his palms, and wills it to stop. He is so tired. He is too tired to be embarrassed that Boris is there with him. He is too tired to care that every square inch of this room is bugged, and his loss of control can be heard in Moscow. Maybe further.

Boris’s hand is at his back, gentling him through this, whatever it is. After a while, a good long while, Valery catches his breath.

“You know,” Boris says, his hand still splayed on the small of Valery’s back, “I’m sure we could get you out of here for a little while.”

“No,” Valery says. “I can’t, I can’t. There’s too much to do, there’s-”

“Valera,” Boris says – and the softness in his voice is agonising. “Please. We’re all tired. We’re only human. Think about it.”

Valery looks at the wall for a long moment. He blinks. His eyes are dry. He looks back at Boris. He sees the fear in his eyes, the horror, the dread. He shakes his head anyway, and watches Boris’s face fall, incrementally. In less than a second, he has righted it. Forever the politician. “I’m sorry,” Valery says.

Boris smiles, and it doesn’t reach his eyes. “Not as sorry as I am,” he says.

Valery sleeps curled against Boris’s side that night. In the morning, they don’t talk about it. Valery presses a hand to the small of Boris’s back when they are alone for a moment, a perfect mirror image of the night before. A wordless thank-you.

-

Valery starts to leave his dosimeter by the bed. The clock, it’s-

-

Before long, they come up with a system. A short, sharp tap to the thigh, the shoulder, is a question. A wordless enquiry –  _are you alright? Is this good?_ One tap in response is yes, two is no. In the moments where they cannot, under any circumstances, be overheard, it works.

Valery’s room looks out onto a courtyard, and he can see the bare branches of a tree swaying in the wind from his bed. Beside him, the sheets rustle, and he turns to find Boris slipping into bed next to him. Five minutes ago, he’d made a show of leaving, slapping Valery on the shoulder and slamming the door, laughing as he went.

Valery sighs, and places his palm firmly on Boris’s chest ( _translation: this is dangerous)._

A raised eyebrow is what he gets in response  _(translation: not if you can stay quiet)._

(There is another translation, a second meaning. A subtext of a subtext. _We’re running out of time_ – or something a little like that. It goes unsaid, but never unfelt.)

Boris moves to straddle him, and a low, electric thrill runs all the way from his temples to his toes. He doesn’t think he’ll ever get used to this. After being lonely for so long, to suddenly have found something good and kind amidst all the horror, to be wanted, cherished even-

The clock, it’s ticking down.

Boris moves down, pressing kisses to his neck, his collarbone. He takes a nipple between his teeth and tugs, and Valery gasps. Then Boris’s mouth trails lower, and lower still. To the bottom of his ribcage, and then to his soft stomach. He licks a slow trail from Valery’s navel to the top of his briefs, and then taps once on his hipbone.

Valery’s hands are shaking as he taps once in response.  _Yes,_ he thinks.  _Oh, please._

It takes a little work, but soon Boris has his briefs off, discarded somewhere across the room. Then he presses a kiss to Valery’s inner thigh, and then, finally, takes him in his mouth.

Valery hadn’t expected him to like this. He’d envisioned Boris as being something of a selfish lover, when they’d first started to look at each other in a way that signalled anything other than comradeship. He’d brought himself off to lurid thoughts of Boris holding him up against the wall, bending him over the sofa, pulling his hair as Valery swallowed around his cock. The truth of the matter is, Boris values tenderness.

Valery squirms now as he moves his mouth up and down, a tight, wet heat. If some poor agent in Moscow is listening in right now, all they’ll hear is Valery’s gasps and the shifting of the bedsheets. Every man has urges, and they multiply when he’s alone. It’ll barely raise an eyebrow.

Boris is good at this. So very good. He sucks in a steady rhythm, slowing when Valery’s hips start to buck, when his thighs tense. Then, when Valery calms down, he’ll speed up again, bringing him to the edge once more. Valery loses count of how many times he does this. It could be ten minutes. It could be an hour. All he knows is that before long, he’s sweating, turning his head to the side so that he can groan into the pillow.

He desperately wants to talk, to tell Boris how good he is, how much he cherishes this. Instead he pushes himself up so he’s resting on his elbows, and with one hand, runs his fingers through Boris’s hair. The sheets are in disarray, kicked down the bed so that they are barely covering Boris’s shoulders.

Boris sucks harder, and, unconsciously, Valery spreads his legs. He looks down, and the sight of Boris reaching down between his own legs while he works his mouth over Valery’s cock – well.

He tries to warn him, tugs on his hair urgently while he helplessly tries to move further into that hot, wet heat. Boris, never one to back down from a challenge, doesn’t budge. Valery can feel the pleasure building, and building, and all of a sudden, cresting.

He moans, muffling himself with a hand over his mouth in case Boris’s name slips out. Boris carries on working him through his orgasm, gentler now, and Valery sobs.  _Let them hear,_ he thinks for a delirious second.

He comes back to himself after a minute, and looks down to see Boris touching himself. He’s staring at Valery, nothing hidden in his gaze. Valery would move, but he’s boneless and still thrumming with pleasure, so he watches. He watches Boris jerk himself roughly, without finesse and then, within a minute or two, come, breathing out a shaky sigh against Valery’s thigh. He looks beautiful, and Valery’s gut twists with something he recognises now.

Boris smiles up at him - and thank God that's one thing that can't be overheard, because Valery will gladly take a thousand more of them.

Valery can’t help but smile back, the silence in the room almost singing with what’s passing between them.

-

There are three certainties. The first is that he, Valery Legasov, is going to die. Soon. The second is that he is in love with Boris. The third is that Boris is going to die. Soon.

No matter what order you put them in, however you try and shuffle the facts about, it doesn’t make it any better. What brought them together is killing them. It’s just terrible, terrible, bad luck. It would be funny, if the clock wasn’t already set. Sometimes Valery laughs anyway, because that’s all you can do. He thinks he might be going mad – but then, why else would he be here?

There are three certainties. The first is that-

-

Later, not quite months but an accumulation of weeks, they are sitting on a bench. Boris is out of cigarettes, so they share. The sun set a little while ago – and the sky is a deep blue. It’s quiet. It’s always quiet now. Valery tries to imagine the sound of children running through this square, their watchful mothers never too far behind.

“What’s that?” Boris says, and points up at the sky. Valery sees it right away, a tiny point of light streaking through the sky, moving in a perfect arc above the Earth. “A shooting star,” Boris says. “My God.”

Valery laughs, and plucks the cigarette from Boris’s fingers. He takes a long, deep drag, looking up at that little false star moving through the darkness. “It’s not a shooting star,” he says. “It’s _Mir._ The space station.” He looks at Boris. “Sorry to disappoint.”

Boris shakes his head. “It’s better than a shooting star.” He takes the cigarette back. “Do you think they know?” he asks. “The men, up there.”

“The cosmonauts? I doubt it.” He watches Boris grind the butt of the cigarette down into the ground, under the heel of his shoe. “Maybe it went a little something like this. ‘Comrade Kizim, Comrade Solovyov, _just_ _don’t look down._ ’”

Boris laughs, grimly. “It wouldn’t surprise me.”

Valery thinks of lunar rovers, and Boris’s smile in that dark room. He thinks of how small this world feels, how stifling. He watches the little point of light fade and then disappear in the middle of the sky, gone until tomorrow. His little finger brushes Boris’s hand – and it’s all they can risk, out in the open, amongst the men that are risking their lives beside them.

“Valera,” Boris says, so softly.

“It’s alright,” Valery says. “I know. Don’t worry. It’s alright.”

The clock, it’s ticking down.

**Author's Note:**

> 1\. this is obviously based on the fictional characters and not the real fellas.  
> 2\. you can see the iss so i am assuming that you could have seen [mir](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mir) zipping across the sky too. i tried to find actual evidence of this but if there’s one thing i can’t do, it’s stop myself from falling into a 4 hour soviet space program wikipedia rabbit hole. so there. we’re all going to die anyway!  
> 3\. i need to calm down but this show has literally derailed my entire life. i think i was in some sort of fugue state while i wrote this.  
> 4\. thank you for reading!


End file.
